Easter Egg Pancakes

Easter is a holiday that I like to celebrate by having brunch with family and friends, but sometimes it’s nice to celebrate on a smaller scale. One way to do this is to whip up a batch of Easter Egg Pancakes, rather than big batches of baked goods meant to serve a crowd. These are your basic buttermilk pancakes that are dressed up for Easter with a little bit of food coloring intended to give them a “decorated Easter egg” look.

To make these, you simply add food coloring to a small amount of your standard pancake batter. The colored batter is piped onto the top of regular pancake batter after it is added to a hot griddle. By putting the colored batter into small ziploc bags with one of the corners cut off (or piping bags), you can get more detailed with your decorations and you have a little bit of time to work before the pancake batter sets. I kept my basic batter plain, so that the colors would stand out more, but you could even tint the basic batter for a brighter (and even more appealing to kids) look. Use leftover colored batter to pipe a few extra decorations – a strip of grass, small “eggs” or even little bunny shapes – and garnish the plate before serving.

If you cook your pancakes at a lower-than-normal temperature for a longer time, you can can cook them all the way through and preserve even more of the brightly colored batter. Personally, I still want my pancakes to be nicely browned and don’t mind sacrificing a bit of color in my finished product as a result. That said, be sure to make your colored batters nice and bright (gel food colors will give you a darker result) so that as much color as possible comes through. Even if your pancakes don’t look as good as your dyed Easter eggs, don’t worry because they will taste delicious and will still be festive no matter what!

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Pour into dry ingredients and whisk until everything just comes together and no streaks of dry ingredients remain.
Place a small amount of batter into two or three small bowls. Add food coloring to tint batter as desired (darker colors turn out better). Transfer colored batter into piping bags or small ziploc bags with the one corner cut off.
Heat up a griddle or nonstick skillet over high heat, until a drop of water will skitter around the surface. Place oblong (egg-shaped) dollops of plain batter into the pan. Use the piping bags with colored batter to add a design to the uncooked side of the pancake (stripes, swirls or polka-dots).
Cook the pancake batter as usual, flipping it when the first side is golden brown.
Serve immediately, with maple syrup.